Thoughts On Spring Training, Part II

Teams and their spring training stadiums tend to match personalities. George M. Steinbrenner Field, the home of the Yankees, rises majestically from a sea of greenery even though it's in the heart of Tampa. The Blue Jays' stadium is across the street from a community center. Detroit's Joker Marchant Stadium, one of the old warhorses of the Grapefruit League, is nestled into a quiet community. There's a church across the street that has game day parking. And the Phillies' stadium is basically in the parking lot of a mall.

Make no mistake, it's a great stadium and a wonderful place to see a ballgame. But as we pulled into the lot, the cop directing traffic had one bit of advice for us: "You're gonna exit through the Buffalo Wild Wings".

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Joker Marchant was full of old men from places like Wayne. They all seemed to know each other and they had a rip-roaring good time, even as the Yankees no-hit the Tigers. For the life of me, I could barely see anyone younger than me in our section. There had been swarms of kids playing in the park out past the left field wall before the game, but damned if I could see any of them once first pitch happened. 

Joker Marchant is a fine old stadium. It's been refurbished but the steel bones of the original construction are still evident. There's no permanent concession stuff in the upper level, none of that tomfoolery. You're there to watch a ballgame and by God, a ballgame you will watch. The sightlines are magnificent. A ballgame you will watch indeed. 

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The crowd at the Phillies game surprised me. It was younger, with a fair number of kids, and a double bucket of nostalgia. The jerseys that fans were wearing covered the gamut - a ton of Chase Utleys, sure, but there were multiple Greg Luzinskis, and a Bob Boone, and so on and so forth. There was even one kid in what appeared to be a Juan Eichelberger jersey, which was odd, because Juan Eichelberger to my knowledge never played for the Phils. And the crowd was loose and into it, in part because the Phillies put a 9-0 thumping on a bunch of guys in Atlanta uniforms, and in part because, well, that was just the crowd. A cold wind blew throughout the game, so if you weren't in the sun, you were shivering, and so there was a constant stream of people leaving their seats in the shade, heading over to a patch of sun, warming up and heading back, possibly having acquired a cheesesteak along the way.
Me, I bought my dad a windbreaker. 

Thoughts On Spring Training, Part I

I took my father to Florida for a week to experience the wonders of spring training. What we were hoping for, I'm not exactly sure; we'd been talking about the trip for a while, since well before my mother passed away, and it was always going to be some time in the future when things were better, whatever that meant. This year, it meant doing it now.
I don't think either of us were looking for some sort of mystical Field of Dreams experience where suddenly our father-son bond started glowing or some such. Nor were we checking off items on a bucket list. Rather, it was a thing we both thought we'd enjoy, and that we'd enjoy doing it together. That's all. No magic. Just basic enjoyment. There's something to be said for that, though.

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We saw four games at four different stadiums. The Blue Jays play across the street from a community center. The Phillies play in the parking lot of a mall, and to get out after the game, you need to exit via the Buffalo Wild Wings lot. The Yankees' stadium, named for the late George M. Steinbrenner, sits majestically in the middle of greenery, as if to say "practice your genuflection here". And the Tigers, well, Joker Marchant Stadium, a renovated warhorse of a ballpark, sits out in Lakeland, in a neighborhood but not quite of it. 

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Spring training is big business. The first game we attended, Red Sox at Blue Jays, was sold out online. "No problem," I thought. "Someone will be selling tickets at the game."
Someone was, for $100 a pop. 
There's special spring training programs, designed to let you know who the guy wearing number 89 and playing shortstop for your team after the fourth inning is. The Phillies and Tigers wanted $4 for theirs. The Blue Jays, $5. The Yankees? $10, though it was better bound and twice the size of the others. Because, well, Yankees. (Still doesn't explain why they were getting more for lemonade than anyone else. Except, well, Yankees.)
All of the programs ran through everyone who might possibly be appearing in a spring training game. Everyone but the Yankees did so in numeric order, the better to answer the question of "Who the heck is #78 and what's he doing at first base?" (Answer: Brock Stassi and he's filling in for Tommy Joseph, who took one off the hand and got pulled from the game.) The Yankees, on the other hand, believe in the dignity of Being A Yankee. Their program lists players alphabetically, as if to suggest these are Yankees, you should know who they are already.
Yes, even the guy wearing #89.

Lies, Damned Lies, No Statistics

Certain headlines repeat themselves year after year at spring training. Some are harmless. Some are true. And some are unmitigated hooey. For example:

1. "Team X spent $400M this offseason!" - No they didn't. They may have signed contracts for $400M, spread out over however many years, but that's not the same thing as saying they plunked down a half billion dollars all in one spot. Throw in the interesting tax ramifications of player salaries (thanks for nothing, Bill Veeck), money that's coming off the books at the same time those contracts are going on, and various and sundry other factors, and the actual dollar amounts teams are "spending" at any given time is slightly less jaw-dropping - or sensational.

Battle Of The Spring Training Sites

There are those who claim that spring training baseball is best in Arizona, and those who think it is best in Florida. Fans of Arizona point to the extensive list of local restaurants provided by Keith Law during his ESPN chats and the fact that all of the teams train close together, while fans of Florida like to point to the tradition of spring training there, the resorts, and the fact that it isn’t Arizona. However, in this age of statistical analysis of everything, it seems obvious that the only way we will ever get to the bottom of this debate is with a head to head comparison, to enable us - the fans - to determine which spring training state is truly the best of all.

Twenty Stories We Can Expect To See Out Of Spring Training This Year

1. Rangers suffer blow to their rotation with injury
2. Rangers suffer second blow to rotation with injury
3. Rangers petition AL to allow opposing teams to hit off a tee this year

Spring Training Is Here

Pitchers and catchers have reported to spring training.

Does This Spring Training Storyline Matter, Round 2

Storyline: Manny Ramirez wants to play again.
Does It Matter?: No
Why?:Because there are a ton of aging DH types floating around AAA who'll give you more production than Manny at this point without the injury risk or the media circus. Dan Johnson, I'm looking at you.

Does This Spring Training Storyline Matter, Round 1

And it's time to play every baseball fan's fifth-favorite spring training related game (behind Will This Guy Help My Fantasy Team?, Is The Rookie I Never Heard Of Hitting .545 This Spring For Real, Oh Crap What's A-Rod Going To Say Next? and Whatever Happened To Jayson Stark's Epic 'Stache?), Does This Spring Training Storyline Actually Matter? Let's begin!

Storyline: The Braves Just Signed Ervin Santana
Does It Matter?: Yes
Why?: Because three-fifths of the Braves' proposed starting rotation came down with injuries this spring, and it's kind of hard to compete with a two man rotation. With two of their top five starters hoping to get a group rate discount on Tommy John surgery, the Braves went out and got the best pitcher left on the market because otherwise this season - which is one of the last seasons in which guys like Heyward, Simmons, and Freeman will be dirt-cheap - would have gone down the toilet. For the rest of us, it means we can stop hearing "Is the compensation pick hurting Santana's chance of signing?" The answer was, and always will be, yes.

By God Spring Training By God

So.
Spring training games have started. Baseball is officially, finally a thing.

And this happens:

All Hail Jordany Valdespin

Try not to think about these

You can in fact successfully find what you're looking for if you Google "Jordany Valdespin hit in nuts".

For those of you who don't know what I'm talking about, be assured that there will be no more cringe-inducing moment in professional sports this year than the one created by the intersection of a 94 MPH Justin Verlander fastball and the font of future Valdespins. Valdespin didn't stand a chance. He went down like he'd been shot. Which, to a certain extent, he had.

There's always a certain awkward dance around the nut shot in sports. It happens all the damn time but the announcer has not yet been hired who will say "he just took a two-hopper off his two hoppers", not since Dizzy Dean got in trouble for describing a young couple in the stands at Sportsman's Park in slightly too colloquial terms. In hockey, they say "lower body injury". In football, it's "abdomen". In baseball, it's a "hard shot to the stomach". Decorum must be preserved, and if there's something incongruous about something as snortingly testosterone-laden as sports pretending that actual testicles don't exist, well, you haven't been paying attention.

And that's one of the reasons I like young Mr. Valdespin. When asked where he got hit, he said, and I quote, "The dick". No mincing words, no euphemisms. He laid it out there, so to speak, and he owned it. And then he admitted that he didn't wear a cup, which meant that what he'd gone through - no, what he'd survived - was that much more impressive and terrifying. To paraphrase Dennis Miller, "Anything hits my dick that hard, I'm going to spot-weld to it". Yet Mr. Valdespin went into battle with just a few layers of cloth protecting his most prized possessions, and without the sort of agility bonus that might have mitigated his woeful THAC0, and still he lived.

So hats off and cups on to you, Jordany Valdespin. You've livened up a humdrum spring training with the sort of daring that the stars of Jackass couldn't expect to survive, and you did it with enough savoir faire to pull off the press conference line of the spring (NSCW edition). Sportsodoxy will be rooting for you, sir. 

And advising you, next time, to get the hell out of the way.

Closers Should Be Heard And Not Listened To

"I'm thinking a Van Dyke and maybe theme music by Mastodon"

The difference between closers and kickers consists largely of theme music and poorly trimmed facial hair.

Otherwise, the similarities are uncanny. They're on the field much less than their peers. They're brought in high-pressure situations when the game is on the line. They tend to flame out rather quickly. And the few with any kind of longevity acquire a sort of mythical status.

Oh, and when they shoot their mouths off, it always feels kind of weird.

"Nothing" Is the Hardest Thing To Say

NOW COACHING THIRD....BOBBY....VALENTINE....

One of the best parts of Spring Training is what happens when guys who have largely been ignored to go hunting/fishing/truck washing/whatever for four months suddenly get an Edible Arrangements-sized bouquet of microphones stuck in their faces by reporters who haven't anything to talk about except salary arbitration (which is math and which many of them therefore do not actually understand). The players, understandably, are not in mid-season cliche-spouting form, and as such there's a greater-than-average chance of getting something pants-on-head quotable.

Like, say some passive-aggressive stream-of-consciousness sandbagging of former teammates and managers. Take, for example, Red Sox DH David Ortiz taking the opportunity to throw long-gone and discredited former manager Bobby Valentine under the bus. Now, the odds are that the next team Valentine manages consists entirely of nine year olds and has the words "SPONSORED BY CONKLIN LIQUORS" on the backs of their jerseys. It is also entirely likely that by the end of that season, the kids will have grown tired of Valentine's erratic distribution of orange slices, his calling out of the team's third baseman for spending too much time on math homework, and his refusal to accept the fact that one of the pitchers actually did get a boo-boo on his elbow when he ran into the catcher by accident chasing a pop-up. But you know what? It doesn't matter. Valentine's gone, Ortiz is still there for another year or two, and everyone moves on...except someone's got to get in last licks.

Then there's the fun in Arizona, where catcher Miguel Montero (the quintessential $9 NL-only roto league catcher) made a point of ripping former Diamondbacks pitching prospect Trevor Bauer for his poor work ethic and inability to take instruction. Bauer, who ended up in Cleveland this offseason as part of Arizona's plan to field a team of nine cloned, stubbly Kirk Gibsons, has his own unique throwing and workout regimen, and regardless of results, this didn't sit well with DBacks management, coaches...or players. And so Montero unleashed a rant that, translated from the original Khazad, can be boiled down to "I totally dumped him first." (Bauer, for his part, responded from Cleveland with a bit of verbal jujitsu that can be summarized as "He crazy. God bless the troops!")

You don't get this stuff during the season, except maybe at the end when the ship's going down and everyone's fighting for a job. But for now, baseball is fresh and so are the opinions, and all I can say is "pass the popcorn".

The Rights of Spring

"Wave your hands in the air like you're going to be assigned to Pawtucket shortly!"

There are people who are very good at writing about the magic of spring training - Thomas Boswell, for one. They can conjure the magic and the pastoral grace of the scene of grown men trotting out to a green, green field to play catch in garments that look suspiciously like pajamas.

I'm not one of those guys. Don't get me wrong, mind you - I love baseball. I can't wait for the season to start. I look forward to reading about positional battles and spring phenoms and guys who, for the space of an afternoon split-squad game in Bradenton, are big leaguers because they dropped a dying quail in off a Cy Young winner who's just there to get his innings in. They may be gone with the first round of cuts, but they'll have that single forever.

See? I just don't have that Boswell poesy, that Posnanski everyman shuffle (complete with Springsteen soundtrack). What I do have, though are a few things. A dog-eared Brooklyn Dodgers yearbook my parents gave me. Baseballs autographed by guys like Ryan Madson and Miguel Batista and the 2011 Syracuse SkyChiefs. A kid-sized Montreal Expos baseball cap, purchased at Olympic Stadium during that last fateful summer when 5000 fans made themselves sound like 50,000 by hammering the metal stadium seats with tiny souvenir baseball bats. Publicity photos signed by guys like Dickie Noles and Jeff Stone. One of those guys actually screwed up his own signature; I won't tell you which one. A signed and dusty caricature of Bob Feller. Carolina Mudcats baseball cards from 2009. You get the idea.

These are not the items of a memorabilia collector. There is no rhyme or reason to them, no special effort being made to keep them pristine to ensure their resale price and no organization to them save "this would be cool" and being in the right place at the right time. They're a fan's collection of talismans, acquired over the years in fits and starts and "hey wait, what's that down there" explorations.

And they are the items of a guy who is made happy every year when spring training starts, not because of the overwrought poetry of watching David Ortiz seismically try to shake off the rust, but because it means he'll get to watch baseball games again soon. A simple pleasure, but a real enough one.

Pitchers and catchers have reported.

Play ball.

Notes From Spring Training

• Rockies scratch Jamie Moyer from his start Friday due to leg issue - apparently no one's had to go to the DL for "acute fossilization of the hamstring" before
• Luke Scott not expected to use a glove during spring training - and not to know what to do with one once the season starts
• Ryan Madson's elbow reportedly near "100%" - Scott Boras immediately working on hardbound coffee table book of "elbows worse than Ryan Madson's", with foreword by Neil Gaiman
• Kansas City Royals sign SS Alcides Escobar to long-term contract - Joe Posnanski nearly leaps from a hotel room window before being reassured it's not Yuniesky Betancourt
• Several teams watch Joe Blanton pitch for the Phillies - Because really, there ain't a hell of a lot else to do in Clearwater
• Roy Halladay says he's fine, despite bad spring training stats - Because he's Roy Goddamn Halladay, and I'm not going to argue with him. Not even a little bit
• Michael Pineda says he's fine, too - Him, you can argue with. For now.